Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Injuries and more reaction from the loss to the Ravens

Episode Date: October 16, 2018

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked On Titans. Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you tonight? Doing alright. What's up with you, man? Not too much. Tonight we're going to talk about some of the stuff that Mike Vrabel talked about at his Monday press conference. We'll get into a little bit of the playing time from the game against the Ravens,

some notes from there, and then we'll talk a little bit about the game in London on Sunday. Before we do that, I remind you, we're right from UnicityMiracles.com, where we cover the Titans for SB Nation, so you can check us out there. Follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry's at TLambertFB. You can also get the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Just search out LockedOnTitans, and you can subscribe there so that you get the newest episodes as soon as they are available. Mike Vrabel had his Monday press conference, obviously, today.

Just a few things to take away. Injury notes. One, it sounds like they have a chance to get Wesley Woodyard back this week, which is obviously a huge thing for this defense. We've seen the issues that they've had with him out. And, again, when you look at the numbers and that kind of stuff, it's not as bad as it's felt at times. But they've definitely missed his presence in the middle of this defense.

Absolutely. And, you know, you talk about Rashawn Evans being thrown into the fire. He probably just hadn't been ready. So it's too early to make judgments on him. Thought he looked a little bit better yesterday. Made some plays near the end of the game, especially in the run games and big hits. You know, Will Compton was inactive yesterday, and that forced Darren Bates into the equation.

And he just wasn't very good in coverage. So that's why you're seeing some of these gaping holes over the middle of the field, and that's why the Ravens converted some of those third and 17s, whatever they were. So Wesley Woodyard has been missed, and that's something that I don't think me or you really talked about enough when he got hurt and went down. But, yeah, he might be the most important player on this defense.

Yeah, and it's weird. I mean, they, you know, I mean, I think when they drafted Rashawn Evans, we kind of assumed that they drafted him to take over for Wesley Woodard. Now, they didn't have to be this year. You know, and again, Woodard's one of those weird guys who it seemed like his career was kind of turning towards being over, and then he found the Fountain of Youth or whatever and has been really good the last two years um after you know kind of struggling the year before that so um yeah i mean he's a guy that's been it's obviously been missing like you

said with just the numbers there they've been forced to do some things that they didn't necessarily want to do um just because they haven't had guys there we're showing that was like you say played better this week uh mike Brable said that in a press conference today. And he's been fairly honest and upfront with, you know, when they ask him how a guy played, without throwing a guy under the bus or whatever, he'll be pretty honest with how he feels a guy did. And, you know, basically said, look, Rashawn Evans was better this week than last week, continues to improve, continues to grow.

And he said in his press conference last week, basically, I'm going to coach him up. He's going to take special interest in that because he obviously understands the position. And so it's good to see improvement from him. And then when Woodgar gets back, you've got a little bit of depth in that position, which is a good thing. The other, I guess, major note from today, Derek Morgan has a shoulder injury that's going to keep him out for a couple of weeks. You know, he's a guy that has been their starter there opposite Brian Arakpo, the guy that plays, you know, the majority of the snaps.

I mean, Arakpo are out there the most as far as the outside linebackers are concerned. With him out, you're going to have to rely more on Harold Landry and then obviously guys like Kamalei Correa, Sheree Finch the guys behind them as well but Morgan's a guy that you know really for his whole career here has been a solid player he's never been great he's one of those guys that looks better you know on like PFF than he does just if you look at a you know box score from the game but um they'll miss him because he's a veteran he's good you know against the run and against the pass but you know really this to me just kind of gives harold landry an opportunity to get more

snaps and i think that's a good thing for this defense yeah morgan's a a strange guy because you know you lose him and you're like maybe not the biggest deal in the world but then you start to realize how much you miss him on sundays um so you've got harold landry there now maybe it's not such a big loss but uh that's just a veteran that does his job uh nothing flashy about him. Not going to make a ton of sacks. But he gets pressure. That's been the story of his career. He's Mr. Pressure.

He hadn't finished a lot of sacks over the course of his career, but a really solid guy. But a big spot for Harold Landry. A big spot for Sheree Finch, who we saw play some snaps on Sunday. So not the end of the world, but obviously another tough loss. You know, already down Vaccaro, you're assuming you get Woodyard back. But Titans need to get healthy on defense because apparently, you know,

that's kind of the heart and soul of this team. Yeah, and the pass rush is going to have to be better in London than it was on Sunday. They didn't make Joe Flacco uncomfortable at all. And if they let Phillip Rivers sit back there with that kind of time, he's going to pick them apart. So you'll have to hope that those guys come in and play a little bit better. The only other really injury of note, Quentin Spain got hurt in the game, wasn't able to finish. Corey Levin came in for him.

Very well said Quentin Spain will be day-to-day, so we'll kind of monitor his work and practice as the week goes along. This is going to be a little bit different of a week. I think, if I understood correctly today, they're going to practice on Tuesday. I think they're going to kind of practice Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then leave Thursday to go to London, where you usually don't start practice till Wednesday, they are going to practice on Tuesday.

Now, I don't know as far as a practice report goes. I don't think they have to give one or at least they don't have to give statuses as far as, you know, limited or whatever in practice. So it'll be interesting to see what we get out of the work that they do tomorrow. Just kind of finishing up the press conference from today, Vrabel was asked about Malcolm Butler, something that we talked a little bit about last night. And he said basically it's a technique issue.

It's not an effort issue, which I mean I don't think any of us thought that it was with Butler. We talked about, you know, I mean so much in training camp and all that stuff. We talked about the energy that he brought and all that kind of stuff. But Variable basically said it's a technique thing with him. And I don't know, a technique thing sounds fixable, but do you feel like this is something they're going to be able to like, hey, turn your hips this way or look here, because Variable made that comment,

like basically where he's looking is part of the issue. I mean, is that something that you feel like they can fix relatively quickly and he's going to be a different player than we've seen for the first six weeks? No. I mean, this is his fifth or sixth year in the league. Right. It's just hard for me to believe that Butler's just lost his technique there. And that's the whole problem.

So I don't think his body's breaking down or anything like that. It may be a technique issue, but for as bad as he's been, that's not getting ironed out in one week or two weeks. It just might be who he is. So, you know, you said it yesterday. We might just need to accept the fact that Malcolm Butler just kind of fell off the map last year for the Patriots and just wasn't good enough to play in the Super Bowl. So it's looking more and more like Belichick was right, you know, shocker, and the Titans got, you know, just screwed themselves by giving him a ton of money

because you're not getting out of that deal we talked about a couple weeks ago. You're not getting out of this deal until, what, 2020? So he's here for the next couple years. So something has to be done. Something's got to be figured out. But it is shocking. You know, I thought the patriots might be telling us something about benjamin the super bowl i didn't think it'd be this bad i mean he's legitimately one of the

worst corners in the league right now yeah and there was a point i haven't seen anything updated since the game on sunday but the before the i can't remember which game before but he was like legitimately the worst corner as far as what pro football focus grades. So I don't know. We'll see how that plays out. But it's just, I don't know. I hope that there's something they can find. And I was telling you before we came on,

somebody told me on Twitter today that they feel like he's going to be okay. And I'm like, I'd really like to know why you feel that way because there's been no indication that anything's getting any better. And the only play that he made on Sunday was a ball that Joe Flacco really underthrew. Crabtree had him beat, and Flacco threw the ball behind Crabtree, and Butler was able to catch up and knock the ball away. If Flacco makes a good throw there, it's another big gain. So I don't know. We'll see.

Hopefully they can do something there. If not, I mean, I think at some point you've got to entertain the idea of letting LaShawn Sims play because he's at least been serviceable in his time when he's played, and that's been better than what we've seen from Butler so far. So, I mean, it seems kind of crazy to put a guy that you gave that much money to on the bench, but at some point, if he's not getting it done,

then you've got to entertain that idea. Coming up, we'll talk a little bit about some notes from the snap counts. Before we do that, I'll tell you about MyBookie. Like I said yesterday, if you've listened to this show for any length of time, we talk about MyBookie a lot. They sponsor the podcast. We appreciate them for doing that.

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paid so we're talking a little bit about you know rotations and stuff like that uh looking at the snap counts and i mean i think the thing that stood out really to both of us is that darren bates played 17 of the 75 defensive snaps now Now, it felt like a lot more than that, and I think a lot of that's because of the third and 17 where he was out there trying to guard Willie Snead in the middle of the field. You know, and I don't know what the deal is with Compton. I don't think he was hurt, so he was a healthy scratch. You know, Bates is a good special teams player.

We do know that. But you're at the point now when Woodyard's out, when you've got to have a rotation there you're he's gonna be on the field at certain points jayon brown played 75 of 75 snaps he was up there the whole game uh rashaun evans played 58 of 75 um but you know you're gonna rotate somebody else in at some point and i't know, it just feels like whenever you've got Darren Bates out there on defense, it's not a good thing. Yeah, the Titans were forced to do that.

I thought Robert Spillane might get some run. I gather they called up, played some on special teams, but nothing on the defensive side of the ball. So I guess you had to get some sort of rotation out there. But when we saw 17 snaps, we were surprised we thought it was more Just because it seemed like anytime the Ravens converted the third down it was against Aaron Bates, you know out there in zone coverage So that was frustrating to see Again, this defense just needs to get healthy Wesley. We'll do are such a big piece. Nobody knew how big the piece until he was gone

so Looking forward to getting him back. But, you know, I just thought Rashawn Evans might get some more passing down work. That was kind of the knock on him coming out was how he would hold up in coverage, whether or not he was a three-down player. And clearly they're thinking he's not quite there yet. So got to get better, got to get deeper there. You know, it's funny, just a couple weeks ago we said linebackers are one of the deepest spots on the team,

and it is, but injuries obviously crush them in that area. Yeah, and that's the thing. I mean, hopefully we're yards back and so we don't have to have this conversation next week. Offensively, when you look at the wide receiver rotation, kind of what you expect. They only had 44 snaps on the offense. Corey Davis played 38 of those. Tajay played 35, and Taewon Taylor played 33.

So it's kind of consistent with what they've been doing there. Again, they need another guy out there. I don't think that there's any help that they're going to be able to find this year. Everybody wants them to make a trade for Amari Cooper or whoever else it may be. And then you see the report today that the Raiders are asking a one for Amari Cooper. And just based off of what you've seen from his production in the league so far, even with how desperate the Titans are for a wide receiver, I just can't imagine giving up a one for Amari.

No, I'm all the way off on that. I mean, unless John Gruden's going to accept a third or fourth round pick. No, Amari always been so inconsistent Yeah, they're trying to find guys that can catch the football consistently Mars had one of the worst drop rates in the NFL since he's been drafted. So just really just hadn't done much in Oakland and I know Derek Carr's not all that great, but That's that's a guy that was drafted up near the top of the first round. So I wasn't a huge fan of his coming out.

I don't think he does enough vertically. I think he's a decent possession guy, runs some good routes, but just not a game-breaker type. And if I'm giving up a first-round pick, it better be for a game-breaker. And just looking around now, Titans have a lot of holes. type and if i'm giving up a first round pick it better be for a game breaker so and you know just looking around now titans have a lot of holes uh and i don't think you can be floating out first round picks because uh now suddenly you're looking at adding a tight end you're looking at adding a guard maybe a center you need some help on the defensive front uh you could add a cornerback so um it's just not a spot where John Robinson is going to be able to go get Mark Hooper.

At this point, if you're trading picks, you need to be adding more picks. You need to be trading down and adding extra picks. I definitely agree with that. Running back snaps is something that people have been pretty focused on. In this game, Deion Lewis played 32 of 44. Derrick Henry played only 12 snaps. And again, there's a lot of talk about needing to get Derrick Henry more involved. That kind of seems to be the theme for a section of this fan base.

But I don't know that really giving him the ball five or six more times in this game would have made that much of a difference. Things were not getting any push, especially in the middle of that line um you know deon lewis seemed to be the better fit for this game uh a guy that you would you know be able to throw some screens or whatever too and they tried that late in the game but it just wasn't able to be successful and that's been and you said it last night i mean kind of the key to this whole offense not going right now is the run game being as bad as it's been but i mean both of the running backs really have been a disappointment to this point in the season now again that's not all on them but you know when you talked about whether it be like from a fantasy perspective

right um you know people talked about the running backs and they both needed to be owned in all leagues but at this point you don't really know what you're going to get from them week to week even if Deion Lewis out snaps Derrick Henry with the numbers that he did there's still not any production there

so I don't really know what to make of that it's just the offense as a whole is broken right now and the lack of production that you're seeing, or the lack of production that you're seeing from the running backs is just kind of symptomatic of what you see with the whole offense. Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing more Derrick Henry because Deion Lewis just isn't doing a lot with his snaps.

He's been a disappointment. I said that last night. I don't know that the Titans areizing him now. We talked last night. I didn't throw any screens You got a heavy pass rush heavy bullets. Why aren't you throwing screen? So not using him a lot in the passing game Yeah, it just seems like every team in the NFL. I see Everything I watch Monday night Sunday night Thursday night check down check down check down It's easy completions that get your quarterbacks going to keep the chains moving I see everything I watch, Monday night, Sunday night, Thursday night, check down, check down, check down. It's easy completions that get your quarterbacks going,

keep the chains moving. Titans just don't do that, and it is bizarre. So I'd like to see that. They're just not using the home with it, at least in that area of the field. But I'd like to see a little more Derrick Henry, and that's just not something I thought I'd say. I'd like to see a little more Derrick Henry,

and that's just not something I thought I'd say. There was a time in the second half where Baltimore knows that the pass is coming. You're down 21-0. At some point in time, you've got to change things up and take something off of Marcus Mariota. It's clearly not working. The offense cannot get any worse. Just hand it off to Derrick Henry and see if you can't get anything going. At the very least, that's just going to not get Marcus Mario to hit on a play.

You know, that's not going to be a sack. So I think they've been quick to abandon the run, you know, against the Eagles game. They didn't run the ball very much because it was a tough front, and it worked because Philadelphia had a weak secondary. But like we said last week, Baltimore, there's no holes in that defense. So we were wondering how they were going to move the ball. It turns out they just flat didn't.

Yeah, and that's the thing. I mean, you thought – we had the conversation last week, the end of the week, about how, you know, Deion Lewis was going to be key in this game and that was going to be a thing, but it just didn't work out that way. It hasn't worked out that way this whole season. So hopefully that's something they can fix going forward. I don't know how much confidence I have in that. I think in certain games they'll be able to do it.

I think if they're going to be successful against the Chargers in London, they're going to have to have some success on the ground because they're going to want to against the Chargers in London, they're going to have to have some success on the ground because they're going to want to keep the Chargers offense off the field. But I don't know, again, I don't know what my confidence level is at this point that they'll be able to do that. All right, coming up, we'll talk a little bit more about that game, the Lions out. So we'll give some thoughts on that before we do. Back to Trevor's favorite sponsor blue

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Use promo code LOCKEDON and try it for free. Blue Chew is the better, cheaper, faster choice, and we thank them for sponsoring the podcast. So if you look on my bookie, our friends over there, they have the line at Titans plus 7. I think you've seen the Titans plus 6.5 somewhere else. It's funny how the confidence in the team goes up and down from week to week.

But I don't feel like that number is big enough. I just don't have any confidence in this offense right now to be able to sustain a drive. And so I think that, you know, as well as the defense has played at times, they've struggled lately. And the Chargers offense is rolling right now. I mean, I think they're the only team, I think I saw Mike Clay tweet earlier, that has scored at least three offensive touchdowns in all six games. And, you know, I just don't have any confidence in the Titans' ability to stop them consistently.

And if you can't sustain drives, your defense is going to be on the field for a long time against an offense like the Chargers offense. I just feel like they're going to be able to put up as many points as they want to. Yeah, you've got Melvin Gordon. He's the catalyst there. You've got Keenan Allen, who works out of the slot. But then you've got Tyrell Williams.

You've got Mike Williams. That's tough. Phillip Rivers obviously pulling the trigger there. One of those guys is going to be matched up on Malcolm Butler, and that's just terrifying. I don't know how you have any confidence at all in Malcolm Butler at this point. So that high-flying offense with a clear weak point, probably again without Kenny Vaccaro, without Derek Morgan.

Yeah, that line seems low. The only thing you can hope for is a trip to London kind of getting them off of their game. You hope the offense shows up, and they have. We've sat here and said, I don't know how the Titans are going to win this game, and they've won this game.

I think it's going to take a creative game plan, something they haven't done for the last two weeks. I don't know. Maybe they need to go back to drawing up plays with Marcus, assuming Marcus Marotta has two fingers or Blaine Gabbert's back there. Maybe that'll work for them. Yeah, that does seem like the place they've had the most success.

And, again, just get creative on offense. Do something different when the same thing that you're trying to do is not working. And we were, you know, praising this coaching staff after those two division wins against the Texans and against the Jaguars for their creativity, for what they were able to do, like you said, with Marcus Mariota, and he couldn't, you know, could only use three of his five fingers. And it just seems like now that they've settled in a little bit. And look, I mean, I know we get accused of constantly making excuses for Marcus Mariota.

He said that he's going to ditch the glove when everything's back to normal. He's still wearing it. So, I mean, he's still not all the way there. So, I mean, I think there are probably still some limitations there. But with all that being said, they've got to do some things to switch it up a little bit to create opportunities down the field or even screens or whatever it may be just to break it up a little bit. They haven't done that in the last couple of weeks,

and we've seen when they've gone up against a good defense that they've struggled. Now, we'll get more into the Chargers in the next couple of podcasts, but the Chargers defense was really good last year. They've struggled at times this year. They're not going to have Joey Bosa in this game, who seems like he's just a huge difference maker for this defense. So, I mean, the Chargers defense that they're going to face is not as good as the Ravens and maybe even thegers defense that they're going to face is not as good as,

you know, the Ravens and maybe even the bills that they faced last week. But I, I just still, I don't, I just, I, I can't have any confidence in this offense at this point.

And, you know, again, the whole marks Mario conversation, we'll, we'll get into that at some point down the road contract and all that. I mean, there's a lot of questions

that they have to that they have to get answered um between now and the end of the season but right now it's just it's just hard to have any confidence in this offense i mean look outside of the second half of that eagles game the body of work that we've seen from this offense this year and again limitations people being hurt that stuff, we understand all that. But over the last couple weeks, they've been fairly healthy, haven't been able to sustain anything, and I don't know how that's going to change in the next five, six days. Yeah, and my answer is to run the ball. But like I said last night,

you just might not have the personnel to do that right now. So a lot of questions. We don't have many answers, unfortunately. Like you were saying, how do you have confidence? You can't. There's no possible way. You see Marcus Mariota against the Eagles. You know that quarterback is there.

You've seen him in his rookie year. You've seen him in year two, year one with Mike Malarkey. The guy was great. He looked like he was going to be one of the NFL's best. So, you know, this is – we can go so many different directions with Marcus Mariota, but at some point in time, excuses are going to wear thin. I think they're starting to get there. You know, you can look at the coaching staffs that he's had.

People point to that. There's a number of different things at work here. I feel bad for the guy. I can't quit him because, like I said, you've seen it. You've seen the results. You've seen the upper echelon play. It's just not there right now. Unfortunately for me right now, I'm leaning towards more of saying Marcus Mariota is a broken quarterback that somebody is going to have to repair. And I'm just not sure how you do that considering what's around him right now.

Yeah, and that's the job that Matt LaFleur has and that's what he has to figure out. So we'll continue to look at that and hopefully we see some improvements this coming week like i said no we're not ready to give up on him just yet but we need to see something a little bit different than what we've seen uh so far all right so that'll do it for tonight tomorrow terry will have a crossover episode with the chargers guy so look out for that and then we'll be back on Wednesday night, Thursday morning to give you kind of our preview of the

Chargers and our final thoughts on the game. Like I said, we'll have a better indication on some of the guys that are injured, what their status has been in practice and all that kind of stuff. Between now and then, check out musicmiracles.com. We'll have a ton more on the Ravens game and leading up to the Chargers game.

So, for Terry, this is Jimmy saying thanks for listening to Locked on Titans, and we will talk to you again tomorrow.